This invention relates to news feeds in social networking systems and in particular to ranking news feed stories based on information from hardware of a mobile device, for example, a speed of a network connection detected by the mobile device.
A social networking system typically has access to large amounts of information describing actions performed by users that may be of interest to other users of the social networking system. A user is likely to be interested in learning about actions performed by other users connected to the user in the social networking system. These actions include photo and video uploads, status updates, transactions, wall posts, posting of comments, recommendations, likes indicated on other users' photos, videos, and the like. The social networking system stores other types of information that is likely to be of interest to the user, for example, activities related to social groups or events represented in the social networking system. The social networking system presents social information as news feed stories, also referred to herein as stories.
Users view stories on their news feeds displayed on client devices and often access content from social networking systems via mobile devices. If a client device has a reliable network connection, then new unread stories will be promptly downloaded to the device. However, if the device has a weak network connection, the user may not have access to all stories on the device. Conventional techniques do not provide satisfactory experiences to users with client devices with weak network connections because users do not have access to their newsfeed at all times. A social networking system that presents stories at all times to each user is more likely to ensure that users are loyal to the social networking system and visit it on a regular basis.